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Total distance: 1.0 km, Updated: 4 months ago
We start the walk by looking out over Prague from the terrace in front of Prague Castle. The Zámecké schody (Castle Steps) emerge here and are embellished with a Baroque statue of St. Filip Nereyský. From the other side, over to the west, the Castle ramp hewn from the rock of the hillside between 1638- 1644, leads to the Hradčanské náměstí (Hradčanské Square). Up until then only a steep path called Lezka, ascending approximately to where the Castle Steps are now, led from Malá Strana (the Small Quarter) to the Castle. At the end of the ramp stands the empty shell of the Baroque kaple Panny Marie Einsiedelské (The Chapel of the Virgin Mary Einsiedel) dissolved in 1783. The remains of the external walls form a balcony for the viewing terrace and on the lower floor a cafe has been set up. The character of the terrace is enhanced by a column with a sculpture of the Pieta and a modern statue of St. Wenceslas. Opposite the terrace, across the square, stands the vast Baroque building of the Archbishop's Palace (No.56/16) with a Rococo facade, decorated with characteristic flat ornamentation.
The large archiepiscopal's heraldic device of Jan Bedřich of Valdštejn is displayed in the middle of the facade. Church ranks were differentiated in heraldry by coloured hats above coats of arms and at the sides cords with knots or tassels. For instance archbishops had in their devices a green hat with ten tassels, the cardinals had a red hat with fifteen tassels and the bishops a green hat with five tassels.
In the palace are ornate interiors, especially the chapel and picture gallery. Particularly fine is the cycle of French tapestries on the theme of the New Indies. Through the passage in the gate on the left is the way to the Sternberk Palace(No.57/15), a building of the high Baroque, where the National Gallery collection of European paintings is exhibited. We can see here fine paintings starting with old masters (for instance the world renowned “Feast of the Rose Garlands” by Dürer) and ending with French avant-garde paintings.
On the opposite side of the square our attention is drawn to the Schwarzenberk Palace (No.185/2), decorated with Renaissance envelope shaped sgraffito work. The palace was built on the site of four burnt out houses between 1545-1563 after designs by Agostino Vlach and is one of the most attractive examples of Renaissance architecture in Prague. Inside beneath the painted Renaissance ceilings, a notable collection of historical arms and uniforms from the Vojenské muzeum (Military Museum) is exhibited.
The Sloup Panny Marie (The Column of the Virgin Mary) in the middle of the square was erected in 1726 not only in memory of the plague which raged through Prague eleven years earlier but mainly as a plea by the Hradčany residents that Emperor Charles VI would finally be blessed with an heir.
The Emperor himself was introduced to the details of the plan and after a number of suggestions he approved it. The statue of the Virgin Mary with the eight patron saints of Bohemia was sculpted by Ferdinand Maximilián Brokoff. From amongst them St. Norbert the founder of the Premonstratensian Order is missing because an abbot of that Order from the Strahov Monastery refused to contribute financially to the cost of the column. Whether this event also contributed to the fact that the plea for a male heir went unheeded is not known. The fact remains that after the death of the Emperor, it was his daughter Maria Theresa who took over the reins of power.
Next to the Schwarzenberk Palace is The Monastery of the Barnabites (No.184/3), with the Church of St. Benedikt, already mentioned in 1353. From the 17th century onwards it belonged to the Order of the Barnabites and from 1792 to the Carmelite nuns, originally resident in the Church of St. Josef in the Small Quarter. The nuns even brought with them the mumified body of the foundress, the Reverend Mother Elekta, and placed it directly in the church. The order of Barefoot Carmelite nuns kept strict rules, the nuns were never allowed to leave the building and were prohibited to write letters even to their closest family.
The Radnické schody (the Town Hall Steps), leading from Nerudova Street to the Monastery of the Barnabites, form a charming corner. Earlier a gate used to stand here separating the Small Quarter from Hradčany. The Hradčanská Radnice (the Hradčany Town Hall) [No.173/1] stands beyond the steps and was founded at the beginning of the 17th century in connection with the elevation of Hradčany to Royal Town status. On the Renaissance sgraffito it is possible to recognise the remains of the imperial coat of arms and the picture of “Justice”. On the portal is the Hradčany coat of arms and on the gates, the official standard of measurement, the Bohemian elbow (59,4cm), is preserved.
We enter Loretanská Street. The Hrzánský Palace (No.177/9) stands on a steep incline: the facade onto Loretanská Street is only one storey high whereas the facade onto Úvoz Street is five storeys high. Beside the Palace used to be a house in which Peter Parléř, the builder of the St. Vitus Cathedral, lived.
The steep slope, on which all the houses on the left side of the street stand, is very noticeable, especially a few steps further on where Loretanská Street is connected with Úvoz by a long, narrow flight of steps. On the right in the wall is the small Chapel of St. Barbora the patron saint of the dying; it was exactly in this place that two robber knights were impaled on stakes. One of them crawled as far as the Barnabite Monastery where he died. The painting in the chapel, many times repainted, was originally by Václav Vavřinec Reiner and depicts a wounded man to whom the priest is administering the last rites.
We now come to Loretánské náměstí (Loretánské Square) one of the most beautiful corners of Hradčany. On the high Baroque facade of the house U černého vola (At the Black Bull) [No.107/1] we notice first of all the coloured painting of the evangelist St. Luke, patron saint of artists, who is painting the Virgin Mary and baby Jesus. The attentive observer will also notice windows painted on the facade. They represent an interesting feature of the Baroque aesthetic - the determination to retain under all cicumstances, symmetry in architecture even to the extent of creating false doors and windows.
The whole square is dominated by the massive bulk of the Černín Palace (No.101/5), which the Imperial Ambassador to Venice, Humprecht Černín of Chudenice and his son Heřman had built between 1668-1697. The plans in the style of the Palladian Renaissance were elaborately worked out by the architect Francesco Caratti who supervised the construction until his death in 1677. The work on the interior decoration of the palace and the addition of an entrance portico (already in the high Baroque style) continued until 1720. The sculptor Matyáš Bernard Braun, the painter Václav Vavřinec Reiner and a number of other artists participated in the decoration of the interior. The palace has four wings and two courtyards. In the vast gardens stand two sala terrenas, orangeries and ponds.
The monumentality of the palace tempted the Prague inhabitants to wild fantasies. Apart from anything else it was being said for instance that the massive walls were created only because Count Černín promised to pay the builders of the palace according to how many cubic metres of walls were completed. The Černín family fell into debt through this costly undertaking and in the 18th century moved to Vienna. The palace remained uninhabited and later on it was leased as temporary accommodation for the poor. Thus the paradoxical situation arose that under the richly decorated ceilings the poorest classes in society were living in rooms divided by a line drawn on the floor.
In the middle of the last century the Palace was adapted for use as barracks and between 1928-1932 was re-arranged into offices and flats for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. On the 10th March 1948, the Foreign Minister Jan Masaryk, fell from the windows of his flat in the rear wing. The circumstances of his death have still not been explained.
On the terrace in front of the Palace, a mosaic outlines the oval ground plan of the baroque kaple sv. Matouše (Chapel of St. Matthew) pulled down in 1791. Our attention however is attracted to the facade of the Loreta (Loretto) of Hradčany [No.100/7], one of the most popular sights in Prague.
By the Loretto, or Svatá chýše (Santa Casa), is meant the small building in the centre of today's complex. According to legend the house in which the Virgin Mary with baby Jesus lived in Nazareth, was transported by the angels in 1291 to Italy and in this way was saved from the infidel who usurped the Holy Land. Even in Italy the angels moved the house a few times until they found a suitable site in the southern Italian town of Loretto near Ancona. The house was deeply venerated and in the Baroque period replicas were built in many places in Europe.
The Loretto's Santa Casa in Prague was built between 1626 - 1631, financed by Kateřina Benigna of Lobkovic. Fifty years later the place of pilgrimage was already surrounded by cloisters to which after 1740 an upper storey by Kilián Ignác Dientzenhofer. The same architect also built the Church of Narození Páně (the Church of the Nativity) and the entrance wing with its tower.
Prior to entering we will consider the Loretto carillon hanging in the tower at the front. The bells are best seen from the terrace in front of the Černín Palace. The carillon was ordered at the end of the 17th century by a citizen of the Small Quarter, Eberhard of Glaukov, from the renowned Amsterdam bell maker Claudius Fromm. For the Prague Loretto the bellmaker selected a total of 27 bells with a range of 2.5 octaves and a total weight of 14 hundred weight. In Prague the bells were put together by the clockmaker Peter Neumann and consecrated; the patron of the highest bell was the Emperor Leopold himself. They rang for the first time on 15 August 1695.
The carillon can be rung in three different ways. The oldest and simplest is the straightforward tapping out of the melody by metal hammers fastened to the bells. Also it can be used on the principle of the orchestrion - installed inside the clockwork mechanism was a cylinder with pegs which during the movement activates the rod which starts the striking of the hammers on the bells. Usually it is the Virgin Mary hymn “We Greet Thee a Thousand Times”, which can be heard. The third method of playing originates in Holland. The bells are connected to piano keys which can be played in a similar way to an organ. Some composers have even improvised on this keyboard including František Škroup and Ferenc Liszt.
In the courtyard of the Loretto is the Svatá chýše (Santa Casa) built in 1626-1627 by Giovanni Battista Orsi. In 1664 it was adorned with stucco reliefs depicting the lives of Old Testament prophets, the Virgin Mary and various saints. Represented on the narrower side, turned towards the Church of the Nativity is the legend of the translocation of the Loretto Santa Casa. Inside it a beam and several bricks from the original Italian Loretto have been incorporated. On the altar is a statue of the Virgin Mary made in black ebony. One wall was intentionally damaged in one particular place: this imitates the damage in the original chapel, which was struck by lightning, supposedly as punishment for blaspheners. Under the Santa Casa is the tomb of the founders of the Prague Loretto, the Lobkovic family. On the two sides of the shrine are two Baroque fountains with a statue of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary and the Resurrection of Christ.
The cloisters inside the Loretto are decorated with ceiling paintings on the theme of the Loretto litany. In the corners and centres of the shorter sides of the cloisters are six chapels. The most treasured is the chapel in the centre of the northern wall which has the altar of St. Francis Serafinsky, decorated with the saint's picture by Peter Brandl. Most visitors however linger by the chapel in the south west corner. On one of the two Rococo altars is a famous statue of a crucified, bearded St. Starosta (St. Wilgefortis). This religious daughter of a Visigoth king was to be married to a pagan. To avoid this, she miraculously sprouted a beard.
Opposite the entrance behind the Santa Casa is the Church narození Páně (Church of the Nativity) built by Kilián Ignác Dientzenhofer in 1734-1735 on the site of the original Chapel of St. Anne. The exceptional architecture is complemented by equally exquisite interior decorations. The vaulting of the church is decorated by a fresco of “the Crucifiction” by Václav Vavřinec Reiner from 1736, and in the nave we can see the ceiling frescos “The Adoration of the Magi” and “The Adoration of the Shepherds” painted by Jan Adam Schopf in 1742. On the main altar is the picture “The Nativity” by Jan Jiří Heinsch.
In the strongroom on the first floor above the cloister is the renowned treasury, containing liturgical objects from the 16th to the 18th centuries. The most famous exhibit, the diamond monstrance, was created between 1696-1699 from heavily gilded silver, studded with 6,222 diamonds from the wedding dress of Countess Kolovrat. It was made by the goldsmiths Matyáš Stegner and Jan Khunischbauer according to the design by Viennese architect Jan Bernard Fischer of Erlach.
Before leaving the Loretto we should note that here during the First Republic (before 1938), unique musical festivals used to take place where newly discovered mediaeval compositions were performed for the first time.
The Loretto is connected by a covered passage standing on pillars with the Capuchin Monastery (No.99/6), next to the Church of the Angelic Virgin Mary. (The Capuchins were called to Bohemia in 1600 to be the keepers of the Loretto shrine.) The Church Panny Marie Andělské (the Church of the Angelic Virgin Mary) is a modest single nave structure, which (as all Capuchin churches) does not even have a tower, in accordance with the Order's regulations stipulating the strictest simplicity. Inside the church, apart from the original interior from the middle of the 17th century, can be seen outstanding modern depictions of the Stations of the Cross by Karel Stádník. In the chapel on the left is kept an old Nativity scene created in 1700 by the Capuchin monk Kašpar. It consists of wooden figures filled here and there with straw, and the faces are made of gypsum and papier mache. Their appeal is heightened especially by the fact that the maker dressed them in real clothes impregnated with resin. Thanks mainly to this picturesque Nativity scene, the Capuchin Church of the Angelic Virgin Mary is among the most popular at Christmas time.
Opposite the church stands the Boží muka, Christ's figure showing the stigmata - together with the spear and the cloth soaked in vinegar. According to a legend, nearby was the abyss where Princess Drahomíra was swallowed up, after having had her mother-in-law St. Ludmila murdered in Tetín.
The cannon-balls set into the facade of the Capuchin church date from the Prussian seige of Prague in 1757. They are best seen from Černínská Lane, through which we enter the ulička Nový Svět (New World Lane).
This quarter had its beginnings in the 16th century on the edge of Hradčany Town - therefore we can see on the left hand side high Baroque fortifications rising up .The little houses in this quiet, at one time poor, quarter impress the onlooker with their distinctive and picturesque appearance. The well known violinist František Ondříček was born in the Lane (house U zlatého pluhu, At the Golden Plough No. 90/25). At the house U modrého hroznu, (At the Blue Grapes No. 78/5) lived the composer Rudolf Friml, whose sister Zdena was courted here by the popular Prague songwriter Karel Hašler. In the house U zlatého Noha (At the Golden Griffin) [No76/1], around 1600, lived the Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe.
At the end of the lane we turn right, into Kanovnická Street. Immediately on the right is the former Hospital of St. Anthony and St. Elizabeth (No.73/7). A hospital was already here in the 14th century but during the Hussite Wars it fell out of use. The new hospital intended for retired employees of the Castle, was founded in 1574 by Emperor Maximilian II. It acquired its present appearance when it was rebuilt in 1737 by Kilián Ignác Dientzenhofer. Next to the hospital is the Church sv. Jana Nepomuckého (St. John of Nepomuk), built between 1720- 1729 by the same architect, for the adjacent Ursuline Convent. It is the oldest Dientzenhofer church building. The interior of the church is decorated with a monumental fresco by Václav Vavřinec Reiner, which depicts scenes from the life and the miracles of St. John of Nepomuk. The Ursuline Convent (No.72/5) was also built according to Dientzenhofer's plans. After its dissolution in 1784 the buildings were converted into barracks.
Passing around the Renaissance Dům pážat (House of the Pages) [No.69/3] and walking the length of Kanovnická Street we reach Hradčanské Square in front of the Martinic Palace [No.67/8] with figurative sgraffito decorations on the facade and in the courtyard. The sgraffito occupies 14,000 sq. metres of wall surface and depicts scenes from the Old Testament.
The palace stands on the site of a mediaeval house, in which Beneš Krabice of Weitmile lived, a chronicler in the reign of Charles IV. Perhaps it was exactly from here that he watched the bustle on the square and with displeasure observed the new fashion excesses: “people copying like apes foreign customs”, he complained, “they wear shorter and shorter dresses, so brazenly that even their thighs and bums can frequently be seen and so figure hugging that they can hardly breathe.” However it should be pointed out that these excesses just described in the Gothic era, were mainly displayed by men. With this excursion into mediaeval fashion we end the walk.